Why You Shouldn’t Rely on Skechers AirTag Sneakers to Track Your Kids
If you want to keep an eye on your kids but don’t want to give them a smartphone or smartwatch just yet, then the AirTag seems like the perfect solution, especially if this AirTag can be discreetly placed in a sneaker .
That’s the idea behind Skechers’ new line of kids’ sneakers, called, appropriately enough, Find My Skechers . The idea is simple: They’re basically just kids’ sneakers, except for the clever AirTag compartment hidden under the liner. It seems like it’s all well-thought-out: You lift the liner, pull out the plastic cap, insert the AirTag, and close it all up. Then you send your child out into the world, knowing you can track their whereabouts at any time.
Unfortunately, that’s not how AirTags work. AirTags can be a great tool for keeping track of the important things in your life, but they’re not designed for real-time tracking. So they’re not great for constantly updating data in real time, which means they’re not reliable for tracking your kids’ whereabouts. Sorry, Skechers.
How AirTags Work
Contrary to popular belief, AirTags are not homing beacons that can update their location 24/7. The tags themselves are not capable of updating their location. They do not have a GPS chip or the ability to connect to the internet on their own. Instead, they rely on other devices to update their location.
Any Apple device connected to Apple’s Find My network can update your AirTag’s location when it comes within range of the Bluetooth tracker. The entire system is passive and anonymous, so no one, not even Apple, knows which devices are updating your AirTag’s location. But it works: If you leave an item with an AirTag on a bus, for example, anyone on the bus with an iPhone can quietly update your AirTag’s location.
The magic behind AirTags is also why they’re unreliable for real-time tracking. Without another Find My device connected to the internet and within Bluetooth range, your AirTag won’t be able to update its location. For example, if your child is out of Bluetooth range of someone with a Find My device, you won’t see their last known location — just the last known location they were within range of the Find My device.
But even when in range, AirTags tend to update their location data rather inconsistently. As Lifehacker deputy editor Joel Cunningham found , sometimes the location data didn’t update for 15 to 20 minutes. Sometimes the AirTags didn’t update their location data at all. So much for tracking.
You will need a GPS device to track the location of your children.
So, there’s nothing wrong with attaching an AirTag to a pair of Skechers. At the very least, you’ll be able to find out your child’s approximate location, at least relative to when they were last in Find My’s range. It’s important to understand that this isn’t a good tool if your primary goal is 24/7 monitoring. For that, you’ll need a GPS-enabled device — a smartphone, smartwatch, or dedicated GPS tracker. (The latter, unfortunately, is usually a subscription service.)